Long Live The King!
by The Jolly Boggart
Summary: In this version Alistair and the female Mage Warden fight the archdemon together on the rooftops of Denerim, only this time the Warden stops him from striking the final blow and this is Alistair getting over his grief and accepting his role as King in honour of the woman he loved.


**Okay, so I've never written a one shot before, but this sort of came to me after I'd played Dragon Age for the first time as a female mage. I can say now that I was more than a little obsessed with the game for a least couple of months and definitely just a little smitten with Alistair - as bookish and naive as that sounds - so when he told me (or the warden, obviously) that he couldn't marry me because he needs to have an heir, and i wasn't of noble bloody birth I was furious! I therefore wanted to die (again, as the warden) and let him marry whatever harlot he could find, I mean I could have talked Anora into it if he'd just said something earlier. Only to then discover that no matter how I played it (without realising at this point I just didn't have to pick him for my party) he goes and bloody well sacrifices himself, after I went through all the trouble of making him King and not letting him sleep with the one person he hates more than the darkspawn. Men!**

**It also annoyed me that it was perfectly within my power as a mage to make him to stay put while I go save the day, then i started to feel a little bit sorry for Alistair, to the point where even thinking about his possible grief (this is assuming he did actually love me and his whole innocent/stupidity thing was just an act) wasn't any fun anymore. I think I wrote this more as a lesson to myself about not getting too involved in fictional characters unless it's just to create more fiction. **

**Oh and I also don't own the rights to Dragon Age or it's characters, but thanks to the people who are for creating such a fab game.**

Long Live the King!

He had to be wrong, he wasn't going to allow for any other possibility.

The people around him had to be wrong too. His heart couldn't hurt this much, the pain would crush him. This wasn't real.

Alistair hadn't eaten in days, nothing tasted right. He couldn't feel his hunger any more anyway. He was numb, living behind a flaccid shield of denial while everything beyond went terribly wrong. He was only vaguely aware that he was standing in his favourite spot on the rooftop of the Earls Estate in Denerim overlooking the Market square. The people below were gathered in the cold, watching in silence as a great stone statue was revealed with a flurry of sheets. A face he missed so much stared back at him over the heads of the crowd who clapped and cheered. Earl Eamon announced

"The Hero of Ferelden, and the sacrifices of all who fought alongside her will never be forgotten."

Never be forgotten…

Seeing her face again made his delicate shield close tighter around him. Things were starting to make sense in ways he was fighting so hard not to accept. His best friend, his greatest ally, his beloved… the reality was torture.

But the more Alistair tried not to think about it, the harder it was to stop the memories from flooding back. Alistair shut his eyes tightly as that final battle replayed before his eyes. He had wanted to tell her something important, he wanted her to know he still loved her, but he realised now that she already knew. She always knew. In the last moments when the Archdemon crashed down as it's annihilation impended, Alistair held her one last time, he told her he loved her and he kissed her like he was pouring his very essence into her. When they broke apart he looked deep into those beautiful blue eyes and he flexed his hands against his blade, ready to end the blight for her. But then her eyes changed. They wavered and shone and a shower of ice flew from her fingers. His armour froze and he could not move.

"You have a destiny, Alistair. Be the King I know you can be. Do it for me. I love you."

Then she turned and headed for the Archdemon. Alistair had cried out, had screamed her name but she never faltered. She stole his moment, his escape, and as she sliced through the Archdemon's neck there was a brief moment when she glanced at him, but the moment was not long enough. The next he knew he was blasted suddenly from the ice as the Archdemon succumbed and everyone including Alistair was thrown against the ground.

That was when his fight against reality began.

He remembered the panic. His stupid brain wanted to find her, it needed to know that she was okay even though he knew it was impossible. When he found her he looked into her eyes again but this time she didn't look back. He stroked her face, wiping away the blood and dirt from her soft skin. He screamed at the people around him to do something, but they stood like statues. Stupid, useless statues.

Every part of him wanted her to look at him again, needed her to say she was okay, that Riordan was wrong… because Alistair had already chosen this fate for himself, how dare she take that away from him!

Briefly he hated her for it, for what she was putting him through. How could she say she loved him and then leave him behind?

His wet face stung cold against the sharp night air and Alistair opened his eyes. Back on the rooftop, in the world that carried on somehow without her, his knees buckled and he sank to the ground, tears chasing each other as they raced down his face. His defences shattered and reality finally hit home. The pain engulfed him, consumed him completely and he opened his mouth in a silent scream. Then he sobbed and cried her name. He told her he would always love her, he said he'd never forget what she asked of him and promised he'd try, for her, to be the King he never wanted to be.

It was only when all but the city guards were asleep that Alistair made his way down from the rooftop and walked with deliberate footsteps through the estate and out towards the marketplace where the statue now kept its vigil. In his hand he held a single dried out rose, the same one he had rescued from Lothering and given to her. She was carrying it with her that day, he had found it, poking out from behind her belt while he was carrying her from the rooftop.

When he reached the monument he looked up with swollen eyes. As he looked at the statue, with its face shining in the moonlight, his heart sank. She wasn't here. Yes, it was her face and it wore her armour, but the colourless texture of the stone and the stern expression it displayed was not her. He looked at the rose instead and remembered the way she'd smiled at him when he first gave it to her. He'd planned to leave this with the statue but now he was here he couldn't do it. The Rose would stay with him forever, and so he tucked it into his own belt.

With a tug in his chest he took a deep breath and then smiled back up at the statue as he thought about what she would say if she saw it. He hoped that wherever she was he'd be able to joke about it when he eventually got there himself. Maybe then he'll hear her laugh again.

Now though, he was a King, and he would honour her in his duties until it was his time to find her again. The strength of his Rose was his talisman and it buoyed his spirit from that day onwards, giving him the resolve he needed as he walked back to the estate and headed to the kitchens for something to eat.


End file.
